Using [https://linguee.fr Linguee] and looking for translations from proper multilingual institutions (European Parliament, European Commission, Québec institutions) is another solution.

Using [https://linguee.fr Linguee] and looking for translations from proper multilingual institutions (European Parliament, European Commission, Québec institutions) is another solution.

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[http://www.wordreference.com/fren/ WordReference] remains a good source for some terms too.

==Glossary of common terms==

==Glossary of common terms==

Revision as of 13:32, 8 November 2017

Si vous cherchez le glossaire des termes souvent utilisés par La Quadrature, c'est PAR ICI !
Welcome to La Quadrature's translation guide and glossary.
It intends to be a useful resource to help you translate La Quadrature texts and answer most immediate questions you might have while you translate.
You'll find here general translation rules, a few stylistic recommendations and a glossary of tricky terms that we often use.

Contents

General translation guide

We use a realtime text editor called Etherpad (often referred to as just pads) to make it possible for multiple people to work on translating the same text at the same time.

When joining a translation effort, please pick a name (using the top-right button) so everyone can see who is doing what

Translators will always disagree on the best way to translate something. This is not a problem in itself. What matters is to be able to have a constructive discussion about these disagreement. Two things are very valuable in trying to do so:

the chat system built straight in the pads (see pictures to the right)

leaving notes in the text itself, for other translators to see.

The button to open the chat, located at the bottom right of the pad

The chat open, in small mode. Highlighted in yellow, the button to make the chat bigger and "dock" it on the right of the pad

don't hesitate to leave things like [FIXME], [NOT SURE], etc. in the text. [MEH] is a personal favourite of mine to indicate I'm unconvinced by a translation I've just produced. ~axx

don't feel obligated to translate everything and anything. Better to leave a gap (and mark the missing proposition/word with a [MISSING]) than to make a bad translation that others will then have to find, think about and fix.

It might seem obvious, but it is worth mentioning: read the rest of the text, not just the bit you are translating. See how others have translated terms and the choices they've made.

Try to maintain consistency throughout the text.

Style Guide

Shorter is better. This is general rule, not a hard one. But keeping our texts short is highly desirable, as many people won't have the time or the courage to read long texts.

French sentences tends to be longer than their English equivalent: because of the “coefficient de foisonnement”, French is 20% longer than English, on average.

If you are a person of French-background translating to English, remember to make shorter sentences than you normally would. English doesn't like very long sentences with many clauses as much as French does.

Neutral style. A lofty (and hard) goal, as neutrality is often a loaded word. But our readers will not all have the same cultural context and references, so we should aim to use words that aren't (too) specific to one country (US, UK, Australia) and keep the words simple.

"Simple" is a hard thing to do, given the source material and the complexity of La Quadrature texts and terms.

When in doubt, pick the simpler way of saying things in English.

Pay extra attention to translating the title: discuss with others, don't hesitate to make multiple suggestions. It's the first things readers will see, it will be in the URL and widely circulated, it needs to be good and deserves effort.

The first paragraph too, to a slightly lesser extent.

We settle on British English, not American English.

This entails "defence" rather than "defense", "authorise" rather "authorize", "favour" rather than "favor", etc.

Dates are in the format Day Month Year (US English would use MDY), example: 1 April 1984

I'd be in favour of using YEAR-MM-DD for dates entirely in numbers ~axx

French dates are the same format, but months are not capitalised : 1er avril 1984

Avoid contractions in written text: “they are” rather “they're”, "it is" rather than "it's". “Doesn't” is usually fine.

Opening press release location and dates are in the following format:

Paris, 1 April 1984

Not all France-specific material is translated. The stuff that is translated to English is considered useful to an international audience. It is worth keeping this in mind when translating, so as to contextualise the meaning: translating is adapting.

Therefore, one should avoid simply translating “Assemblée Nationale” to “National Assembly”, which has no specific meaning in English.

It is better to opt for something such as “Assemblée Nationale (lower house of French Parliament)” or ”the lower house of French Parliament (Assemblée Nationale)”.

The italics are good practice, they help clearly mark the fact it is a foreign term.

Accents (and diacritics in general) are not optional on French upper case letters.

Ç, É, À, È, Ê are here to copy paste, should you need them.

Typography and punctuation: English doesn't use (non-break) spaces before the following symbols, whereas French does:

! ? ; :

Tips

If you can't find a word here, a useful trick is to find the untranslated term on Wikipedia (say, in French) then look at how the corresponding article in the other language (say, English) is titled, or calls the term.

The European Council is the Institution of the European Union (EU) that comprises the heads of state or government of the member states, along with the council's own president and the president of the Commission. (wikipedia)

Conseil de l'Union européenne

Council of the European Union

Conseil de l'Europe

Council of Europe

The Council of Europe is a regional intergovernmental organisation which promotes human rights, democracy and the rule of law in its 47 member states (Wikipedia)

Considérant (en début d'un texte juridique)

recital

Contrôleur européen de la protection des données

European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS)

Cour européenne des droits de l'Homme

European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)

Cour de justice de l'Union européenne

European Court of Justice (ECJ)

Décret

decree

décret d'application d'une loi : implementing decree

Délégation de signature

Delegation of Signature Authority

Demande d'intervention

to ask for leave to intervene

Déposer un amendement

to table an amendment

Déposer une plainte

To lodge/file a complaint

To lodge a complaint before the ECtHR, for instance

Déposer (ex : des écritures) devant une cour

Submit or File (ex: documents) with a court/jurisdiction/tribunal/you name it

We need to translate the wikipedia article. This translation is according to the English version of the website of the French Constitutional Council. Alternatively we can put in footnote: The QPC is a French Constitutional Law procedure allowing persons involved in a pending case to ask the Constitutional council to control the constitutionality of the laws relating to the case at hand.

Raison d'État

reason of state

Recours

Possibility to bring a case/an action *before* a court, right to judicial redress

Before, not in front

Recours au fond

Judgement as a matter of law

Recours en annulation

Appeal for annulment

Référé en suspension

Suspensive judgment

(US) "temporary injunction"?

Renvoi préjudiciel

Preliminary rulings

Responsable de traitement (données personnelles)

Controller

Retiré, retirer (le projet de loi a été ...)

The bill was withdrawn

Saisir une cour/tribunal/juridiction

to lodge a complaint with ..., ou to bring a case before ..., ou refer to the court